Business intelligence is the technology and practice of applying information to make decisions. In this way, business intelligence is different than data warehousing, which is more about storing information. It is also more comprehensive than data mining. Information shows its real value when many people can use and share it. This is the goal of business intelligence.
For information to be this usable, it must be trusted, timely, relevant, easy-to-use, and in context. These are all necessary aspects of business intelligence technology. Different business intelligence tools address these factors in different ways. Reporting delivers regular, timely information, with the ability to author reports or queries to get specific details. OLAP analysis, with its multiple dimensions, allows you to compare and contrast information against time and other factors to uncover trends. Scorecarding presents your key performance metrics and whether you've cross pre-determined thresholds. Executive dashboards put information in context, and in an easy-to-understand format.
All of these business intelligence tools should integrate to present a coordinated view of your organization. In this way, people using different tools share the same answers to the same questions, gain more value from your information investment, and make better decisions.
